Why do American Courses lack ... Heavy Rough ..

[colintrav]

Everytime I see footage of the UStour without fail I always notice .. the serious lack of heavy rough...

Are the scared full stop hitting ball's out of heavy rough incase they do damage ot there wrists or do they like they're Courses like the way they like there "cough cough "... always trimmed ..

 

[USER1999]

They don't tend to have heavy rough, but quite often they have this wiry cabbage stuff, which looks easy to hit out of, until you try it. Ball sat there looking lovely, but you still can't get a club on it.

May be they do it to avoid having every one looking for balls all the time. It would work for me. Who wants to spend an hour a round searching for lost balls?

 

[Imurg]

Heavy rough is one of the main factors in slow play - we're not all Gods and we do find the rough. If it takes 5 minutes to find it you're going to slow things up - yes you should let groups through but your round is going to get longer. If one of your group finds the rough every hole - not an unlikely occurrance - then you're going to add about an hour to your round.
That's as good a reason as any for not having it, especially on busy courses.

 

[TRS30]

I think there is a difference between pro and amateur in this instance. Each pro group has spotters watching their drives and looking for it while the players walk down. Not something that us amateurs are lucky enought to have!

I think the main reason is two fold, one they want to see guys hit it 330 yards+ but when they do this they are in the rough as often as on the fairway. Second when they are in the rough they want them to still be able to go for the green rather than have to hack out sideways with a wedge, makes better TV, supposedly !!!

 

[CliveW]

I think the main reason is the types of grass and the climate. Long heavy grass is not natural in warmer climates and therefore would require extra irrigation to make it grow. The natural vegetation would be scrubland and not grassland as we have here.

Incidentally, we don't have the heavy rough here that we used to. Courses now have rough cutters to maintain the height of the grass in the rough, and as previously mentioned, to speed up play.

 

[Atticus_Finch]

When I played in Florida last year, the starter warned us that the "rough" was getting up and to watch out when we went in it as we may struggle to find our ball. I proceeded to miss the fairway on the 1st, but didn't think he was talking about the bit I was in (I though he was talking about the jungle that was waaaaaaaaay wide)
The "rough" he was talking about was about 3" deep, but it was an awful wiry type grass and your ball burrowed it's way down to the roots and got covered up, making it very difficult to find and even harder to get out of.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, that although it may not look much on the telly, because of the type of grass used, it doesn't need to be 10" deep like here to be punitive.

 

[Junior]

There is nothing worse than watching your ball go in the rough thinking you will find it and having to complete the walk of shame 200+ yards back to the tee . . .

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Nothing to do with the nasty snakes and spiders that tend to congreate there? Not a good advert for visitors if a green fee gets carted of tho ER with a snake bite

 

[USER1999]

Worse still, the 145 yard walk of shame for Smiffy.

 

[Atticus_Finch]

The only thing we were warned about were raccoons. Apparently they sneak out and steal things from your cart. Sounds a bit like a muni I used to play when I was younger except it wasn't raccoons.

 

[Iaing]

Nothing to do with the nasty snakes and spiders that tend to congreate there? Not a good advert for visitors if a green fee gets carted of tho ER with a snake bite

When we played in Florida ( 25 years back ), the starter told us :
Don't go near the water,there are gators

Don't go in the heavy rough or trees,there are poisonous snakes
But apart from that have a great round.
I think the 4 of us lost about 2 dozen balls between us.

 

[USER1999]

But it wouldn't be Fl without the wild life. One of the best reasons for going. I have seen eagles, otters, gators, shite hawks, cranes, turtles, pelicans, racoons (theiving little gits), armadillos (cute) and more. Cranes steal stuff too, particularly hot dogs.

 

[Smiffy]

Worse still, the 145 yard walk of shame for Smiffy.

Cheesed me right off that did. Tough par 3 and I absolutely flushed that 4 iron

 

[PhilTheFragger]

American courses sport the Golfing version of a "Brazillian"


Apologies for lowering the tone

Peter Stringfragger